‘Phelps vs. Shark’ Viewers Vent on Twitter About Simulated Shark Race

Fans of Discovery’s Shark Week were thrilled when they learned Michael Phelps would be racing a great white shark on Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White. The widely publicized race garnered lots of attention on social media and was a trending topic on Twitter.

Unfortunately for Discovery, most of the viewer feedback from the show was frustration. It seems that many viewers thought Phelps was going to literally race a great white shark. But the behavioral ecologist leading the experiment, Dr. Tristan Guttridge, disappointed thousands when he said, “Clearly, we can’t put Michael in one lane and a white shark on the far lane. We have to do simulation.”

Researchers performed a few experiments to gather shark data and then formulated a simulation. The race was actually Phelps swimming in the open ocean while a CGI shark swam alongside him.

Considering a great white can swim 25 miles per hour and Phelps’ fastest recorded speed is 6 mph, it wasn’t all that surprising Phelps lost to the shark — even while wearing a sharkskin suit and a monofin.